Don’t live according to the latest studies

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By Loretta LaRoche

News Eagle - Hawley, PA

By Loretta LaRoche

Posted Jun. 30, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By Loretta LaRoche
Posted Jun. 30, 2014 at 12:01 AM

Bad news is available every day by the ton. You can drive yourself nuts listening or reading about the latest horrors, if you chose to. But every once in awhile there is a reprieve. Last week we were told that butter was taken of the “most wanted list.” Post offices across the country will have to cross off butter as one of the deadliest criminals of the last century!

I laughed my butt off when I saw the latest Time magazine cover with a huge picture of curled butter with the caption “ Eat Butter. Scientists labeled fat the enemy. Why they were wrong.” I never thought butter was the enemy, and I’ve never stopped using it. In fact, if I can before I die, I’m going to fill my bathtub with butter and eat a lobster in it stark naked.

It almost feels like there are individuals from different facets of the population that get together to demonize a certain food so that they can come up with an alternative that will make them millions of dollars. First they scare the living daylights out of you with control studies on how fat clogs arteries (and believe me I am not advocating that we all have lard sandwiches every day), then they invent a product that resembles butter but isn’t. For example, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. A great name, because the reason you can’t believe it, is because it isn’t real butter. DUH!

Then other foods are added that may contain the dreaded fat so that more products can be made to resemble the original but taste like old cardboard. But, hey, you’re now convinced that you’re going to protect your arteries so you do your penance and eat it. But just in case you elect to keep eating butter, or sour cream, or anything with fat in it, you can opt to take a medication that will act like Pac-Man for arteries. So now you feel protected and it’s OK to scarf down whatever you please.

The insanity that has enveloped in this culture around not only food, but also exercise, stress, technology, work and parenting has eliminated common sense to a large degree. We are becoming more and more at the mercy of a constant string of studies that virtually invalidate themselves weekly. Who do we believe them and why should we?

I want to hear about individuals who do everything in moderation and live long lives. Where are they? Maybe they’re at home right now eating a piece of toast with butter, with an egg or two (another redeemed food). They might even have a piece or two of bacon with it, uncured of course. Sounds good to me.